finetrader

you could try to short a China ETF.

Concerning selling variable annuities, I found this comment by Buffett. I also like your point of view oec2000 on the similitude between the not hedging variable annuities and selling index puts by Buffett. http://sify.com/finance/life-insurers-took-quot-crazy-quot-bets-buffett-news-insurance-jfem4Rgbfai.html

Sorry if I look ignorant but is someone could tell me how to trade futures? can you do it in a brokerage margin account, or do you have to open an another kind of account? thanks in advance

Short story on MFC. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/tradingdesk/archive/2009/12/09/manulife-s-guidance-too-conservative.aspx

Ever heard of Montreal? lots of people are saying that Montreal is more of a party city while Toronto is a business city. Real estate is cheap over here compare to Toronto, Vancouver ( though I suspect more and more people are finding about it and are moving to Montreal, helping pushing real estate market up). If only winter season could be warmer... ( it is about the same as Toronto)

can you guys tell me how you are thinking about mfc valuation? assume that MFC makes ROE of 12%( which is lower than what they did historically): This equates to E=1.86Can$/share for 2010. Put a P/E=12 multiple and you get P= 22,32$/share. If MFC make 4B profit or 2.28$/share ,about the amount they did in 2007 and 2006, then with a P/E of 12, you get P=27.4$. So it looks undervalued, but it's not trading half of IV.

MFC is in the dog house right now because the new CEO is diluting the company to solidify the balance sheet. I personally think it is an opportunity to buy as it looks like the same old pattern of a new CEO cleaning the house to start his reign from good ground and thus having better chance to look good in the future. At the same time, adding to reserve might just be the right thing to do for MFC as they took risk in their operation by not hedging their equity-linked liabilities. bad for old investors, good for the new investors. makes me think of Wayne Gretzky's quote: "Skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is." The new CEO seems to have a more prudent approach.

enjoy! http://www.pimco.com/LeftNav/Featured+Market+Commentary/IO/2009/Dec+Gross+Anything+but+01.htm

I've always thought that Bruce Berkowitz would be considered for this job.

I'm not sure of what to think about Roubini, but this is well written and makes sense. http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/

I personally like his vision of China to be the next big thing. His opinion on commodity has played out pretty well so far. He co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Rogers I'm not sure about his historical investment return.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/352118/Inflation-Inevitable-Rogers-Says-Could-Be-%E2%80%9CMuch-Worse%E2%80%9D-Than-the-1970s?tickers=TBT,GLD,UDN,%5Edji,%5EGSPC,TIP,GDX

What about an insurance company that is well managed (combined ratio <= 100) that have their float invested in short term bond. When a bond comes to maturity they can invest the cash at a higher yield as interest rates are going higher to fight inflation.

20%(notional) naked put KHD at 7.5$ and 10$ april 2010 20% Hanfeng 10% ORH.pr.a ( i think the end is near for this one as FFH should redeem it) 20%(notional) naked put on WFC at 20$ , april 2010 20%(notional) naked put on MFC at 17.5$, january 2010 25% BCE + covered call 20% cash 10% MFC 5% SFK 10% others wish to convert BCE and cash into other investment ideas but can't find anything

I have been looking at ths stock, and would like to get opinions from this board. It looks cheap at first sight with p/FCF=8, after deducting 30% of FCF that they are gonne pay in income tax beginnning in 2011. I am concerned over the moat around the directory business though. With the internet, more people(including myself) look for a business phone number with search engine (ex:google). Numbers don't yet show erosions in profitability but would like to have opinions from other inverstors.

Canadian Tire Corporation(CTC-t) might be one. It is fully priced right now though.

Wow. I didn't mean to create such a debate guys... but that's why i like this board so much :) Thinking about it furthermore this afternoon, I tried to think about it another way. I've started with the idea that S&P500 at 1500 in 2007 was too high, because of all the excesses in the system. How much too high is another question. If there were only 5% of excesses, the market would not have crashed like it did. So I put a 20% figure of exuberance. Let say we lived in a world ruled by responsable and competent peoples, then a fair value of 1200(1500*0.8) for 2007. Compound this at 7%(comes from my creative mind) or whatever growth rate you wanna use to get the fair value of S&P500 for the years after that. This is in a responsable scenario. Unfortunately, there has been excesses causing wealth destruction and wealth stealing. And the consequences of this: high level of debt and government deficits. So where are we now?

Well I'm not saying i would hedge at 1200 (i.e. 15X 2006 all time record earnings for the s&p500 ) but to me it looks like a fair if not generous value of the S&P500 post recession. If the market rise too fast, and priced for perfection, I would considered that the potential of it rising further is limited and the risk of falling is higher. At a certain point it would make sense to hedge. Of course many things can happened. ex: -Second stimulus plan, continuous deficits... which would deferred liabilities'payment for the excesses of the last bull market. -USD devaluation which would boost international compagnies'profits included in the s&p500 -etc

With the recent rise of the market, and the statement from Hamblin-Watsa that they are continuously monitoring the market for hedge purposes, I was asking myself to what level of the S&P500 I should hedge my portfolio. S&P500 reached a high plateau of about 1500 in 2007. If you buy the future scenario like the one Billl Gross is elaboring (i.e. future growth will be much lower in the years to come) and if you think that the earnings in the 2006-2007 era were inflated by leverage in the banking and real estate sectors, then you should not expect S&P500 to reach 1500 anytime soon on a fundamental basis, because this equates to lower E and lower P/E. This is so subjective, but if in the short term the S&P500 would reach 1200, then I would be tempted to say that the market is priced for perfection, i.e. V shaped recovery.

What about an eventual canadian dollar appreciation versus USD? Could this be a big factor? What proportion? I know SFK bought US mills(Fairmount) and this help offset the pressure that a canadian dollar apreciation can create. is it enough?

nice article. Never heard this sentence from B.Graham concerning the right time to sell. http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/GAM.20090909.RRICHARDS09ART1923/GIStory/

I agree that volatility is a good thing when you know how to concentrate on fundamental. Asset allocation explain 90% of performance, so it can be a good idea to be invested in cash from time to time. From hindsight, a year ago, if someone was invested in bond and cash like Fairfax was, it was the place to be. It seems hard to do, but if we remember, all the news were talking about a recession in the beginning of 2008. Even Buffett said at that time that by any measure the US was in a recession. Unfortunately, I was fully invested in stocks back then( I thought I'd be fine by not having US stocks exposure). But I think it is possible to see the long term cycle of the economy and act properly to be in synch with it.

'Does GAS-t accurately track the price of the gas index over long periods of time? I seem to recall that some other ETFs have suffered substantially from volatility and have failed to track their index.' Are you talking about leveraged ETF?

Gas-t

Where is it going? is this the bottom? or is it going to 1$/MMBtu? I am no expert at all, but I like to buy things that went down a lot that I know that soon or later they will be more expensive. any vehicule idea to invest in natural gas?